Scientific objectivity and the logics of science

This paper develops an account of scientific objectivity for a relativist theory of evidence. It briefly reviews the character and shortcomings of empiricist and wholist treatments of theory acceptance and objectivity and argues that the relativist account of evidence developed by the author in an earlier essay offers a more satisfactory framework within which to approach questions of justification and intertheoretic comparison. The difficulty with relativism is that it seems to eliminate objectivity from scientific method. Reconceiving objectivity as a function of the social character of science, rather than of individually practiced methods, allows us to claim that science is objective even if relativism is true, and provides a more realistic account of scientific objectivity than is possible on either the empiricist or the wholist accounts.     

The objectivity of color and the color of objectivity

I am grateful to Peter King, David Lewis, George Schumm, Stewart Shapiro, Allan Silverman, William Taschek, Neil Tennant, and Mark Wilson for helpful and stimulating discussions; and especially to Diana Raffman and Michael Watkins for ongoing arguments about the importance of ongoing arguments about the ontology of color.     

The pursuit of being in the life and thought of Jean-Paul Sartre

This paper has examined the relationship between the life and the thought of Jean-Paul Sartre. The central themes of Sartre's personal existence are shown to revolve around a struggle for self-definition and self-formation, rooted in the empathic failures of significant others during his formative years. It is argued that Sartre's experience of this struggle is mirrored and symbolized by the dialectic of being and nothingness which constitutes the central preoccupation of his philosophy.     

The unity of consciousness: subjects and objectivity

This paper concerns the role that reference to subjects of experience can play in individuating streams of consciousness, and the relationship between the subjective and the objective structure of consciousness. A critique of Tim Bayne’s recent book indicates certain crucial choices that works on the unity of consciousness must make. If one identifies the subject of experience with something whose consciousness is necessarily unified, then one cannot offer an account of the objective structure of consciousness. Alternatively, identifying the subject of experience with an animal means forgoing the conceptual connection between being a subject of experience and having a single phenomenal perspective.     

Ethics and science: Educating the public

This article looks at the public debate which took place in the first half of the twentieth century and has repercussions to the present day. It was about the ethical stance of scientists, and how science should be organized. In particular, it examines the positions taken by Professor F. Soddy, F.R.S. and Nobel Laureate, who stressed the responsibility of scientists for the uses made of their research, Professor Michael Polanyi, F.R.S., who emphasised the obligation of scientists to the truth and the essential role of morality in the organization of science, and Professor J.D.Bernal, F.R.S., who insisted that science was practised for utilitarian reasons and should be consciously developed for the good of society.     

Ethical objectivity: The test of time

According to many, evolutionary accounts of ethics undermine the prospects of its objective foundation. By contrast, this paper argues that such evolutionary accounts discredit only the absolutist construal of moral truths as timeless but supports other conceptions of objectivity as tested by time. Insofar as Kantian constructivism addresses the problem of ethical objectivity from the standpoint of temporal rational agents, it is not vulnerable to debunking arguments based on evolutionary explanations. In fact, recent work on evolutionary accounts of reasoning and inferences not only coheres with but it also reinforces the constructivist conception of practical reason as a problem‐solving cooperative device apt to temporal and interdependent rational agents.     

How objectivity undermines the study of personhood: Toward an intersubjective epistemology for psychological science

As a science, psychology embraces the value of objectivity. An objective observation is one that is (a) based upon publically observable phenomena (i.e., overt behavior); (b) unbiased, in the sense that it records only what was observed, without either adding or taking away from the observation, and (c) an accurate representation of the world as it truly is. To understand the person, however, it is necessary to come to grips with seemingly elusive concepts such as agency, symbolism, experience, meaning, inter-subjectivity, and morality. Such concepts make reference to phenomena that are not observable in way that one can observe objects in the physical world of space and time. In this paper, I examine how psychology's commitment to objectivity obscures our ability to understand persons. A remnant of the Cartesian distinction between a mind and body, the principle of objectivity forces psychologists to seek “objective” indicators of “subjective” processes. Following Wittgenstein and recent research on the mirror resonance system, I argue that psychological knowledge arises neither from within (subjectively) nor from without (objectively), but instead from between (intersubjectively). To understand what it means to be a person, we must abandon the false distinction between objectivity and subjectivity, and embrace an epistemology based on intersubjectivity.     

Predictability in life and in science

It is a significant coincidence that social science tends to assume a universal human need for predictability, and also uses predictive power as the basic criterion of scientific truth. It is claimed here that man's need for predictability often is crossed by a need for uncertainty and chance. Thus it seems doubtful that the methodological canon of predictability can be anchored in the universal usefulness of social predictions. Some important cases of decision‐making seem to be more concerned with the past than with the future. The task of the social sciences cannot be completely separated from philosophical problems, since it is part of a continuous endeavour to clarify the image of man.